Shyam Parekh

Fresh tiger-potty Vs India's environmental concern

As polyester-fibre ribbons will be cut and bulky books and reports using bleached fine stationery, using funds from the international agencies will be launched in CFC using air conditioned wood-paneled halls, the environmentally concerned elite of India will have the satisfaction of doing something for our environment. Probably a minister or two will emphasise government's commitment to protecting the country from the giant wicked companies who are hatching avatar-like conspiracies to take away their jungles and land.

Schools will encourage children to use wax crayons and synthetic paints to paint trees and animals (which most of them have never seen except form the balcony of the resort-room in vacation or a fleeting glance of a black-buck when the family went on tiger-watching safari but failed to see one. Apologies) on fine grade virgin-paper.

Some more enthusiastic urban yuppies will park themselves for a few extra hours in front of the pc to shoot a thousand mails to countless like-minded about their wish to switch off power for one hour on a particular day to 'save environment'.This will be followed by couple of parties and boozing sessions to finalise the plans which are then communicated through more emails, phone calls, bike rallies, smses and so on.

India's problem with the environment is best illustrated and manifested at the safari parks. Moneyed and fat, gutkha chewing and power wielding, urban families land in the finest forest resorts in subsidized-diesel-burning expensive SUVs with most expensive cameras and gadgetry to watch tigers and (lions if the place is Gir Forest). Early in the morning as one sees hundreds ready to shell out good three-four thousand rupees for an entry permit, entry ticket, guide charges, vehicle fees etc, outside the forest department offices.

As one sees a caravan of 50 SUVs each loaded with about 8-10 people all searching one sighting of a tiger, one understands the problems. Soon the guides create excitement over a wireless message about a tiger spotting some kms away. They wear an earnest air to convince you. When you return frustrated they congratulate every one. "Boss, do you see that? You are damn lucky! The tiger passed her just 5-minutes back...see that fresh tiger-potty...it wasn't there 15 minutes earlier. Its still watery....". I will spare you the banal details of what all the guides hardsell.

The cubs, the juveniles...ooops...the children and adults then go back with souvenirs of save tiger t-shirts and caps. Can any one in a sane state of mind actually believe that the tiger or even a wild sparrow wait at the corner under a thicket when a circus of dozens of diesel-guzzling-and-noise-belching vehicles pass by?Do 500 hundred people who have spent about Rs 10,000 per head for a jungle vacation really believe that a tiger will be waiting to give them a darshan amid high-pitched-cacophony in all spoken languages from India?

These people maybe silly, like most of us are, but they are not ill-meaning. They just don't know what to do about environment - so they decide to spend their hard earned money to at least see it. Someone needs to tell them what they can do to not ruin it, there is no need to make a patronizing statement to save it.

The whole circus of environment protection is India is heading towards becoming a farcical industry. They are far from talking about the real problem.Under the disguise of development and growth, the spineless politicians and money-multiplying industries will want to avoid talking about it. The economists have re-packaged the weakness as strength. The real problem lies in the ever-increasing population of India. With one-fifth of world's population we have only one-twentieth of the world's land. We also have the world's highest population growth rate on such a scale of population.For a simple comparison, we don't even have one-third of land resources that China has.

How is a fragile eco-system of a river or even a sea, if some 5 billion people use a flush daily?How can rain forests exist if the country consumes several lakh tons of tea every morning? Like the disappearing Aravalli Hills, most of the hills near urban sprawls will soon be history as they will be consumed for mammoth construction projects as raw material.This nation needs an immediate relook at population policy and consumption of resources for industries if we don't want to end up killing each other for a glass of fresh water or for a breath of fresh air. Will any economist, environmentalist please stand up on this occasion to tell the truth - where will we head with the exponential multiplication of our population?